But Taylor still holds out hope that he can guide the South London side back into the top flight and keep his team together. He hopes that Paul Ifill’s 65th-minute winner at Roots Hall will provide a springboard for them to make a late run for a place in the Championship's top six.

He said: "We’re very capable of it, we’ve got great players here with great quality. We needed to win tonight, the team needed to win and the club needed to win. We’ve got 13 matches to go, we need to win nine of them. It will be tough but that's what we've got to do."

Nor did last night’s match. In the first-half Palace looked no better nor more likely than they did while slumping to a home defeat against Birmingham on Saturday.

They were constantly troubled by the barrage of aerial balls sent forward by Southend to target men Freddie Eastwood and Lee Bradbury.

Palace had their Hungarian goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly to thank for the goalless half-time score-line.

He came off his line to intercept a string of crosses and when Richie Foran did get his head to a close range effort Kiraly was well placed to gather it.

The appearance for the second-half of substitute Dougie Freedman gave Palace more power and their winner could easily have been followed up with two more goals.

Ifill scored from 12 yards when the Southend defence panicked in trying to clear a James Scowcroft cross and within minutes young substitute Lewis Grabban flashed a header wide and also drew a rare save from Daryl Flahavan.

Southend’s best chance for a reply saw a shot from Mark Gower luckily deflected to Kiraly.

Southend boss Steve Tilson is now looking for a run from his side to try to climb out of the relegation zone and he thinks they are capable.

He said: "What problems did Crystal Palace cause us? How many saves did Daryl have to make? We’ve got to win six or seven of our remaining 12 games to reach safety. And the home ones are important. Barnsley, Luton, Leeds and Leicester have still got to visit here and they are all clubs around us that we can beat."